May 24, 1912] 
from the Egyptian army, and the Arab junior 
clerk. But the losses are heavy, for peace in 
the tropics claims its victims no less than war, 
in fatalities and sick leaves. The heavy loss 
to the laboratory caused by fire was promptly 
made good by the patron of the institution 
and its work has increased greatly in variety 
and magnitude in recent years. 
This is noticeable in the accessions of vol- 
unteer helpers, Dr. Stevenson and others, and 
in applications for opportunity to work in the 
laboratory far exceed its facilities. The exten- 
sive work of this institution is carried up and 
down the Nile and its tributaries by the ubi- 
quitous laboratory steamer Culea and by a 
floating laboratory equipped for researches 
remote from Khartoum. 
For the first time the term “tropical” is 
added to the official title of the institution. 
This is particularly fitting, not only from the 
location, 15° 30’ N., but also because this is 
the last outpost of civilization at the river 
gate to tropical Africa. It is also a natural 
center for the attack upon the problems which 
inhere in a desert environment and arise 
when man tames it by irrigation. 
The medical volume is in large part devoted 
to tropical diseases of man, but likewise con- 
tains a number of important studies in bac- 
teriology, protozoology, sanitary problems, 
and in that field of constantly increasing im- 
portance, comparative pathology. Lieutenant 
Colonel Mathias, president of the Sleeping 
Sickness Commission, reports upon the meas- 
ures taken to check that great plague by segre- 
gation of sick natives in fly-free camps, clear- 
ing vegetation at all fords along the automobile 
road, and the introduction of treatment of 
the disease by atoxyl, metallic antimony and 
Ehrlich’s “ 606.” 
Animal trypanosomiases of the Sudan are 
discussed by Captain Fry in a very able man- 
ner. He notes that the natural conditions of 
this country tend to group both animal and 
human life in isolated colonies and hence to 
develop apparently isolated types of diseases 
which alter the virulence and characteristics 
of the trypanosomes which cause them. He 
accepts as the most reliable method of dif- 
SCIENCE 
827 
ferentiation the use of frequency polygons 
based on careful measurements of eomparable 
preparations of the organisms, preferably 
from similar culture animals. This morpho- 
logical basis in his opinion is more trust- 
worthy than animal inoculations and reac- 
tions, culture, carrier, or the reaction to drugs, 
as a means of specific distinction. 
An endoglobular developmental stage in the 
red-blood corpuscles similar to that found by 
Dr. Chagas in Brazil for Schizotrypanum 
cruzi is reported by Mr. Buchanon for Try- 
panosoma brucei. Captain Archibald has dis- 
covered human botryomycosis in the Sudan, 
the occurrence of acid-fast bacilli like B. 
tuberculosis in the lungs of the camel, and a 
new form of cutaneous leishmaniosis. 
The work of the director, in addition to the 
heavy routine of administration, has included 
a study of the peculiar “infection granules ” 
of fowl spirochetosis including the life his- 
tory of the spirochete in the ticks which 
serve as vectors. These results have impor- 
tant bearings on African tick fever and other 
spirochetal infections of man. ‘The specific 
relations of the spirochete of human tick 
fever at Khartoum to Spirochete berbera of 
Algiers is definitely established by Dr. Bal- 
four. From his pen also comes a most useful 
paper on the fallacies and puzzles met with in 
a blood examination in the tropics and else- 
where, with a colored plate displaying the pit- 
falls which await the novice who searches for 
blood parasites, into which forsooth some ex- 
perienced workers have been entrapped. A 
coceal form of the diphtheria bacillus is re- 
corded from Khartoum, and Leishman nodules 
or non-ulcerating “oriental sores” are for the 
first time described. 
An illuminating picture of sanitary admin- 
istration is afforded in the director’s account 
of “Some Aspects of Tropical Sanitation ” 
in which is revealed not the militant hygiene 
of Panama, but another type of sanitary tyr- 
anny adapted to the life of an ignorant and 
fanatical people. To wage a successful war 
against conditions which tend to slay the white 
man and the black what is required is “ edu- 
cation, such legislation as will crush the cul- 
